Perceived Role of COVID-19 Vaccine for School Return Among Teachers in an Urban School District

Background: Return to the classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic invokes equity issues, with fewer students of color learning in-person compared to white peers. Concern over safety of plans for return to in-person learning resulted in prolonged negotiations between Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the Chicago Teachers Union. Considering Chicago’s redlining history which has disadvantaged West and South Side neighborhoods, it is essential to understand teachers’ perspectives surrounding “safe” reopening related to COVID-19 vaccination.

Methods: We created and distributed an anonymous survey to a sample of 8,000 CPS teachers whose email addresses were publicly available in February 2021. Participants were asked about demographic information and perceptions of safely returning to school in the context of vaccination. We performed bivariate analysis to determine relationships between variables and content analysis of free-response data.

Results: 1,626 (representing 7.7% of all CPS teachers) respondents fit eligibility criteria as CPS teachers (Table 1). A majority of teachers (79.9%) intended to vaccinate, 6.4% planned not to, and 7.0% were unsure. Overall, 84.5% of respondents felt safer about in-person return to school if personally vaccinated, compared to 14.9% who did not feel safer despite vaccination. Feeling unsafe to return in-person after vaccination was significantly associated with Black and Latinx identity (OR 8.4 and 2.3, respectively compared to whites), teaching Special Education (OR 1.7), and working in one of Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods (OR 1.9, 3.0, 2.3, compared to North Side). High school teachers (OR 0.3) were the most likely to feel safer (Table 2).

We asked participants about the benefit of returning to school without (pre-vaccine) and with (post-vaccine) vaccination made universally available to school staff. Pre-vaccination, 83.5% of respondents did not believe the benefit of returning to in-person learning outweighed the risk, compared to 45.0% post-vaccination. While no significant racial differences in pre-vaccination risk perception were noted, in the post-vaccination scenario, only 26% of Black and 35% of Latinx teachers changed their belief to favor return to school compared to 54% of white teachers (p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Teachers of color and those who teach on the South side of Chicago were more likely to not feel safe to return to in-person school despite vaccination. This could be explained by perceived differences in schools’ capacities to guarantee additional safety measures, related to longstanding disparities in Chicago’s educational system. Half of teachers indicated that benefits of return to in-person school did not outweigh the risks even with staff vaccination access, and many emphasized the importance of student and community vaccination in preventing transmission. Findings that the perceived role of vaccination in school return efforts varies with Chicago’s known racial and neighborhood disparities has bearing on the future of equitable education nationally.